Museum PR Announcements News and Information

CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts New 2012 Limited Editions

In fall 2012, six artists with ties to the CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts—John Baldessari, Mark Bradford, Jonathan Monk, Paulina Olowska, and Laura Owens were asked to create new editioned works to support the Wattis’s transition into a new location in San Francisco. These new works, made exclusively for the Wattis, are available now on a first-come, first-served basis. Read more about them at wattis.org/store/editions.

About the Artists
Born in 1931, the conceptual artist John Baldessari is one of the most influential American artists working today. Baldessari is known for his use of appropriation, erasure, alteration, and montage to interrupt a given narrative and create entirely new meaning out of existing imagery. His layered, often humorous compositions carry disparate connotations, underscoring the relative nature of language.

Mark Bradford incorporates elements from his daily life into his paintings and collaged canvases: remnants of found posters and billboards, graffiti-ed stencils and logos, and a variety of materials he finds in urban environments such as the South Central Los Angeles neighborhood where he lived as a child and still has a studio space.

The Berlin-based artist Jonathan Monk takes a tongue-in-cheek approach to conceptualism. Each work within the edition Grey/Gray (2012) is visually unique and comes with two vinyl records. Side A has the sound of black paint being mixed with white paint. Side B has the sound of white paint being mixed with black paint. One is in a black sleeve, and the other is in a white sleeve, both inserted in a clear plastic sleeve with a printed sticker and a small offset-printed certificate signed in pencil and painted with gray fingerprints.

Paulina Olowska incorporates appropriated text and graphics into her autobiographical narratives. Her collages reference numerous sources, from Modernism to Soviet and U.S. propagandist typography, 1960s Pop, contemporary fashion, and street graffiti.

The Los Angeles–based artist Laura Owens references in her work a wide and imaginative range of subjects. Moving with ease between high and low, the personal and the social, Owens investigates formal and technical issues of painting through a highly personal blend of abstract and representational imagery.

About the CCA Wattis Institute Edition Program
The Wattis Institute’s edition program offers limited releases by some of today’s most significant established and emerging artists, including Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla, Abraham Cruzvillegas, Tim Lee, Roman Ondák, Paul McCarthy, and Mario Ybarra Jr. For direct sales and additional information please contact Micki Meng at [email protected] or 415 703 9521. Proceeds directly support the ongoing realization of the Wattis Institute exhibition program.

About the CCA Wattis Institute
The Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts was established in 1998 in San Francisco at California College of the Arts. It serves as a forum for the presentation and discussion of international contemporary art and curatorial practice. Through groundbreaking exhibitions, the Capp Street Project residency program, lectures, symposia, and publications, the Wattis Institute has become one of the leading art institutions in the United States and an active site for contemporary culture in the Bay Area.

CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts
California College of the Arts
Kent and Vicki Logan Galleries
1111 Eighth Street
San Francisco CA 94107-2247
T 415 551 9210

www.wattis.org
www.wattis.org/store/editions